The Myth of SEC Dominance

On PTI this evening, the show’s hosts were discussing the presumed “dominance” of the SEC in today’s game and if it’s good for the overall game.  I can’t argue with their recent BCS Championship record (five wins in a row), but I can argue the bigger picture.  My baseline argument: the top of the SEC (Auburn and maybe Alabama) is superior to everybody else, but as you go down the standings, everybody is interchangeable.  Also, I believe the myth of the SEC dominance is a self fulfilling prophecy, because the more we believe in and pump up the SEC teams, the more the human polls inflate their standings.

It’s sort of like the “east coast bias” in other sports.  Generally, teams and games on the East Coast get more attention and television airtime because a disproportionate amount of people live in the Northeast and due to television and newspaper time constraints and deadlines (the NY Times and the USA Today can’t write about the Spurs/Lakers game as well [if at all] as the Magic/Heat game because by the time the game is over they may have 45 minutes before printing).  There’s no doubt that a topographical map of the United States of College Football would concentrate the population in the Southeast (Texas and Florida are high school football breeding grounds).  The NYC metropolitan area only has Rutgers to root for.  Boston has BC, but they’ve only had 2 10-win seasons in the last 25+ years.  Philadelphia has Villanova who is at the top of the FCS game, but relies on Temple and transplant fans from Penn State and Rutgers in the FBS.  Long story short, there is a definite Southeastern bias in the college football world.

A majority of fans (myself included) get their sports news from media outlets such as ESPN, CBS College Sports and any of dozens of regional sports networks.  When these networks prejudice their programming towards certain teams or certain regions, it takes a very keen eye to differentiate and realize what’s happening.  If you don’t have cable (which a portion of Americans do not), you have a limited number of football games you can watch each Saturday.  Generally, you will get any Notre Dame home games and the SEC game of the week on CBS.  If you are lucky enough to have cable, you have many more options.  ESPN’s coverage tends towards the Big Ten during the daytime hours, but there are plenty of SEC games left over that weren’t selected by CBS.  On my cable system, one of our local regional networks, MSG (home of the Rangers and Knicks games), plays host to the SEC Network!  Figure that one out. For the most part, as a fan, you are forced to watch what the networks will broadcast, and generally that is what will garner the most eyeballs.

I don’t fault ESPN or any other media outlet; they do what they do to sell advertisement space and to drive ratings.  If a higher proportion of the college football world root for Florida and Tennessee, then damn it, broadcast those teams.  Unfortunately, this same bias leaks into other programming such as pre-game shows and commentary/analysis shows.  I wish I had statistics for the number of mentions of SEC and their teams during a typical broadcast, but I would bet that it was proportionately higher than other teams and conferences on normal days (obviously, leading up to the BCS game the talk will be for the SEC and the PAC-10).  These shows, like College Game Day or College Football Live on ESPN, are at the base of our acquired sports knowledge.  It’s analogous to the debates on whether or not to teach evolution or creationism in school.  Depending on where you grow up (aka what channels and programs you watch) and what your school teaches (aka what regions/teams you bias) you will likely live your life believing that theory (aka which teams are best).

Anyway, back to my point… The people who vote in the human polls rely on the same news and media that other fans do.  Sure, some may have some inside information and may be “in the know” but in reality, they don’t know all that much about every team.  The final USA Today Coaches Poll actually has 37 teams ranked because 12 teams also received votes.  Do you mean to tell me that Nick Saban of Alabama could rattle off statistics or even starting players of Tulsa or San Diego State?  Maye he knows of the top guys, but does he know enough to make an educated estimation of their place amongst Northern Illinois, West Virginia, Iowa and Miami (OH)?  I doubt it.  Human (poll) nature is to go with your gut, and that is easily influenced by what you see, read and hear through the media.  If Cam Newton was on Iowa and they still finished with the same record, I guarantee they would be ranked higher because of the airtime the Hawkeyes would have received.

So, from week to week and year to year, we talk about the SEC and it’s presumed dominance, but in reality we are inflating the effect.  As I mentioned at the start, Auburn has proved they are the best team in the Nation (or a very close second to TCU), but are they that much better?  They beat a gimmicky Oregon by 3 points.  They had three 3-point games in the regular season against Mississippi State, Clemson and Kentucky (a combined 20-16 in the regular season; Clemson and Kentucky finished 6-6 and squeaked out bowl games, which they lost).  You can make two points here, 1) the mid-tier (Mississippi State or Kentucky) of the SEC is so good it can nearly beat the upper-tier or, 2) that Auburn (and by osmosis, the SEC) isn’t far and away the best team.

I’ll go with the second.

PS- I started out writing this as a quick hitter type of article but ended up spending an hour crafting the ideas.  I think I’m going to turn this into something more substantial and do some research and see what results show up.

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